Dead Reckoning (24 page)

From the way he skated over the details, Jett guessed there was a little more to it than that, but it wasn’t as important as the bee Mister Shepherd got in his bonnet about coming up with an “elixir” he could
use to make his fortune.
That
got him run out of town on a rail over what he called “ignorant superstition and arrant persecution” (and what Jett suspected ordinary folks might call “poisoning”). But by then, he was hot on the trail of what would become his “Elixir of Allamatonry.”

“But the Elixir is only a part of the whole, magnificent achievement though it is!” he said, striding back and forth in front of her as if he were giving a public lecture (or was a pigeon on a sidewalk). “It is not enough to create the
allamaton
! One must then
control
it! I nearly despaired, Miss Gallatin! But the life of the mind which was my comfort and refuge came to my aid! For you see, the ancient pagans believed that audible sound had the power to heal or to kill. From that bare hint, my genius refined upon their primitive superstitions in ways they never dreamed of. You see—in fact, as you will soon see for yourself”—he emended with an obscene chuckle—“once a body has been prepared with my Elixir of Allamatonry and undergone the purging alchemy of extinction, I can instruct it with my “Musica Universalis” to act at my command!” He paused expectantly.

“You poison folks and then caterwaul at ‘em until they do what you want?” Jett asked doubtfully. She supposed what she’d heard the night he’d brought
the zombies back to Alsop must be that “Musica Universalis” he was going on about.

“More! Far more! I will show you!”

He strode to the muslin-shrouded object and pulled away the sheet that covered it. It was the biggest pipe organ Jett had seen outside of a church. Its brass pipes gleamed in the lamplight. Brother Shepherd walked around to its side. Jett couldn’t see what he did, but whatever it was made a glugging sound like water being poured out of a stone jug, followed by a low constant drone. The pipes rang faintly, as if a wind was blowing through them.

“Behold the power of Musica Universalis, Miss Gallatin!” Shepherd shouted, seating himself on the organist’s bench.

He brought both hands down on the lower keyboard.

The blast of sound was the loudest thing Jett had ever heard short of cannon-fire. The floor beneath her feet vibrated, and she desperately wanted to put her hands over her ears.
They’ve got to be able to hear that all the way to Alsop—let alone back at the ranch house!
she thought.
What does the Fellowship think he’s doing out here?

The sound brought her headache back full force. But that was only the beginning. Chord followed
chord—none of them anywhere near the same key—before the blasts of noise began to resolve themselves into … something. Certainly not any kind of melody. The jangling jarring discords certainly made
her
want to rise up—if only to do in Shepherd’s instrument. Soon the organ notes were being accompanied by a thin glassy ringing, as every piece of glass and china in the ‘inner prayer house’ vibrated madly. There was a crash as something she couldn’t see fell to the floor. Shepherd didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn’t care. As he played faster and faster—and louder, if that was even possible—Jett leaned forward cautiously. Maybe he’d be so caught up in raising the dead that he wouldn’t notice if she moved.

The sudden silence was as deafening as the sound had been.

“You see, don’t you? The music moves you—don’t deny it.” Brother Shepherd sprang from the organist’s bench and strode over to her.

“If anything could raise the dead, it’d be that,” Jett answered. She hadn’t meant it as a joke, but Shepherd seemed to take it that way. He laughed, then put a hand under her elbow.

“But come! You have not seen the full extent of my genius!” he said, picking up the lamp on the nearby table.

Jett followed docilely, still waiting for him to lock her
up somewhere private for an hour or two. She found herself wondering if Mister George Wilson Shepherd of Ohio had forgotten he’d brought her here at gunpoint and intended to kill her once he was done showing off. She didn’t think she could be that lucky. If she was Gibbons, she bet she could have talked him into it (on the other hand, if Gibbons was here she might just improve his zombie-making methods).

Brother Shepherd led her past the pipe organ and through the archway. It didn’t lead to another room, but instead opened onto a corridor. The clay walls were damp, and the scent of decay grew stronger with every step she took. Shepherd didn’t seem to notice.

“Up until now I’ve been creating my
allamatons
slowly, so the disappearances won’t attract too much attention. A farm here, a settlement there—I admit Sheriff Mitchell forced my hand. But no matter! Very soon I’ll have enough
allamatons
not merely to scour the rebel state of Texas clean of traitors, but to wipe out the godless savages as well. The Comanche, the Apache, the Pawnee, and the Ute will be no more.”

“I reckon you aren’t the first feller who’s said that about the Apache,” Jett said. “Don’t you think somebody’s going to notice?” she added quickly, since Brother Shepherd was giving her a sulky look.

“Let them!” he said happily. “Every fallen enemy will increase the strength of my unstoppable army! The
wealth I’ve amassed has nothing to do with Earthly enrichment, just as my Fellowship does not exist merely to gratify some base longing for adoration!”

He glanced at her expectantly, but Jett didn’t know what to say. She was too busy trying to keep from gagging at the stench. And she wasn’t sure what she
could
say to someone who’d just said he was going to wipe out thousands of people with an army of walking corpses.

“Behold!” Brother Shepherd said, bringing them to a stop. He released her arm and raised his lantern high above his head and took a few more steps forward.

For a merciful instant Jett didn’t understand what she was seeing. When she did, she raised her bound hands and pressed them over her mouth. If she hadn’t, she would have screamed.

The bodies in the doorway sagged or leaned or lay heaped and tumbled like the tenants of an open grave. The ones behind them and to either side were pressed so tightly together they stood upright. She couldn’t see the back of the room, or its edges, but every square foot of the space was packed with zombies waiting for the sun to set.

“Come closer,” Shepherd urged, as if he were proudly showing off his prize roses.

“Mister, you can shoot me right here before I do any such thing,” Jett said hoarsely.

He lowered his lamp, looking disappointed. The shifting illumination gave the dead faces a hideous appearance of life and movement. Jett took an involuntary step backward.

“You think my plan won’t work,” Shepherd said quietly. For the first time since he’d brought her down here, Jett thought he sounded almost sane. “You believe everyone will share your repugnance, and so I won’t have willing followers to stand guard over my great army during the hours of daylight. Ah, but you’re wrong, Miss Gallatin. You’re wrong. And I will show you why.”

He walked back to where she stood and ushered her ahead of him. At this exact moment, Jett didn’t care where they went, as long as it was away from that room.

That morning, while the predawn shadows were still cold and blue, Gibbons and White Fox had watched as Jett rode out of sight, then they returned to the makeshift laboratory she’d created in the Alsop saloon. Hours passed as he watched her pace back and forth muttering to herself. From time to time she would stop and leaf through some notes—notes she had surely memorized by now—or go to stare at the makeshift map on the wall. As inscrutable as her work might be, Gibbons’s frequent detours to the street to gaze at the position of the sun—and then at the watch pinned to the front of her jacket—were utterly transparent.

Jett was late.

“Jett Gallatin is a very resourceful individual. I am certain this delay in her return has a wholly innocent cause,” White Fox offered at last, voicing a certainty he was far from feeling. Many of the Anglos who came west seemed to feel neither law nor custom bound them any longer. The Army functioned as much as policeman as a military instrument, and in his time with the Army White Fox had seen things he once would not have scrupled to name madness. He knew (perhaps better than Gibbons or even Jett) what men and women were capable of when they felt they were beyond the reach of punishment.

Gibbons grumbled something under her breath and resumed her pacing. From time to time she’d settle into her chair to consult her notes and the tiny spell book belonging to Trooper Lincoln, but such stillness would only last for a few minutes before she was on her feet once more. Finally, as the afternoon light slanted across the floor, White Fox could bear Gibbons’s pacing and semiaudible mutters no longer.

“My friend Doctor Singer was a wise and educated man,” he said. Gibbons gave no indication that she had heard him, but White Fox was reasonably convinced she was able to think and listen at the same time. “The two things are not necessarily the same,” he added dryly, slanting a sideways glance at Gibbons. She continued to ignore him.

“One day, when I was still among the Meshkwahkihaki, there came a day I happened to be with him when he was urgently summoned—so he was told—to a deathbed,” White Fox continued. “He asked me to accompany him, and I did. The lady had been traveling when she was taken ill, and when we arrived at the stagecoach stop, he found several other females present at her bedside. They had removed her outer garments, but despite the fact she was unconscious, and obviously in deep distress, none of them was doing anything. ‘It’s that patent corset she is wearing,’ one lady cried out to Dr. Singer as he moved to examine her. ‘We can’t get it off her—’”

“Exactly why I refuse to wear the miserable things!” Gibbons interjected crossly. White Fox reflected that she was surprisingly charming when she was annoyed. Her cheeks flushed a becoming pink and her eyes sparkled. She might have said more, but White Fox prevented her by resuming his tale.

“Doctor Singer snatched his scalpel from his black bag. ‘Clearly you ladies never heard of Alexander the Great!’ he growled, and in an instant he sliced through the knotted laces. The lady’s breathing eased at once.” White Fox smiled faintly. “Doctor Singer was persuaded of her full recovery when she snatched up her parasol and—”

He broke off at the sudden sound of hoofbeats.
Nightingale. From the sound, Jett was returning with urgent news. Perhaps his anecdote would not be needed after all. He hurried to the street to greet her, but the moment he saw the empty saddle, his heart sank. Nightingale had returned alone.

The stallion shied violently when he reached White Fox and danced to a halt a few yards away. He was covered in foam, and his mouth was bleeding where the bit had cut him. White Fox had seen Jett ride often enough to know she could never have done this damage. Someone else had obviously grabbed the stallion by the rein.

“Something has gone wrong,” White Fox said as Gibbons joined him.

“Yes,” Gibbons snapped. “That much is clear even to me. I wish you could talk,” she said to Nightingale.

The stallion skittered even further out of reach, ears flat back, then extended his neck hopefully.

“I’m not chasing you all over the landscape,” Gibbons said crossly. Nightingale minced toward her and finally nudged her shoulder. Gibbons reached up to stroke his muzzle. “Where is she?” Gibbons asked the stallion.

“Captured,” White Fox said needlessly. “Perhaps she is already dead,” he added in reluctant tones. He hated to think it, but he remembered Jett’s tale of her escape from Alsop. He’d later seen with his own eyes what Nightingale had braved to rescue her, and so he
knew Nightingale wouldn’t have abandoned Jett. Not if she’d been anywhere in sight when he was attacked.

“No!” Gibbons exclaimed. Nightingale flung his head up at her vehemence. “Not you,” she said, patting his neck. White Fox saw her set her jaw in determination. “We’ll see about that,” she said grimly.

* * *

Under Shepherd’s supervision, Jett retraced her steps back to the main room, down its length, and through the second doorway. She’d expected a second corridor, but it opened at once into another room at least the size of the one she’d just left. There wasn’t enough light to see clearly, but between the light from the other room and the lamp Shepherd carried, Jett could see the shadowy outline of a long marble-topped table. The shroud-covered body on it gave the table the look of a mortuary slab.

Shepherd ushered her further into the room. When she was standing where he wanted her, he set the lamp down on the end of the table and walked away to light more lamps.

This was a chance at escape.

She turned and ran for the doorway. But before she could reach it, the sound of a shot echoed loudly through the room. The bullet struck the wall ahead of her and sprayed her face with dust. Jett recoiled and
staggered sideways, falling against the wall beside the doorway.

“The next one goes into
you
, Miss Gallatin!” Shepherd called cheerfully. “Do not try me!”

She turned around slowly. He brandished the Colt.

“Now come here,” Shepherd said.

He motioned her forward with the gun barrel until she was standing within reach, then dragged her into the shadows. Before she could get a good look around, he yanked her hands up over her head and shoved her back against the wall. She tried to lower her arms, but he’d hooked the handcuff chain over something. As she struggled, Shepherd stuffed the Colt back into his waistband and reached toward her neck. For an instant Jett thought he was about to strangle her, but what he did was worse. He closed an iron collar around her throat. When she tried to pull away from the wall again, she couldn’t.

“I’m sure this is more comfortable for both of us,” Shepherd said, smirking unpleasantly.

“Happy to swap places with you,” Jett said tightly.
You damned fool! You should have run when he walked you out of the house! You let him waltz you down here like a calf to the branding, and now he’s got you roped and tied!